Tag Archives: Bill Clinton

national news

Righties’ duplicity = hypocrisy

My friend made a great point today after lunch.

“If Barack Obama had done a half of the things, a third of the things, that Donald Trump has done,” he said, “the evangelicals would be screaming for his scalp! But with this guy — Trump — they shrug and give him a pass. They say, ‘That’s just Donald.'”

Yes. Indeed.

His point is worth examining a bit more closely.

The issue of the day is the fling he took with Stormy Daniels, the porn star. And then we have the 10-month romantic relationship he allegedly had with Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model.

Are these issues by themselves worthy of an impeachment? Oh, I don’t think so. Then again, there might be more “there” there to discover … take it away, special counsel Robert Mueller.

The notion that the evangelical voter base would give the president a pass on a 12-year-old sexual episode speaks loudly and clearly to the duplicity those voters are exhibiting.

If we flash back about, oh, 25 years to the 1992 presidential campaign of Arkansas Gov. William Jefferson Clinton, you understand where I’m going with this.

The far right of the Republican Party that today is giving Trump a pass because what he did was so long ago was going apoplectic because of alleged affairs Clinton had with women well before he ever became president.

I cite the cases involving, oh, Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones … to name just two of them. Flowers came forward with an allegation that she and Clinton had a fling. What was the right wing’s response then? They went ballistic, man! They flew into paroxysms of rage!

These days? No sweat. He’s a changed man. He wants to “make America great … again.” The president deserves God’s grace.

To be fair, I’ll concede that progressives who largely gave Clinton a pass in 1992 are filled with rage and anger at Trump today. But their tolerance then is ancient history. I’m talking about the here and now.

Which brings me back to the point my friend made this afternoon. If someone other than Trump had done what he’s being accused of doing, our friends on the right and the far right would be … um … beside themselves with rage.

Hypocrites.

national news

Porn queen vs. POTUS takes weird turn

Donald John Trump says he didn’t have a sexual affair with a porn queen.

The porn queen so far has been (more or less) quiet, although her lawyer says for the record that the two of them — the porn star and the president — had a sexual relationship.

So … if the president’s denial is true, why is he suing the porn queen for $20 million and seeking a change of venue from a state court to a federal court?

I refuse to name the porn queen because I don’t want to give her any more publicity than she’s already received — which is plenty! It’s too much, if you were to ask me.

But this story continues to get weirder by the day. A part of me shouldn’t give a damn about Trump’s sexual proclivity. He bragged about prior infidelity and those who voted for this clown knew what they were getting when they elected him president of the United States of America.

However, his lawyer reportedly paid the porn queen 130 grand to keep her quiet. She says that Trump never signed the non-disclosure agreement, making it all null and void. She’s spoken to “60 Minutes,” and the segment is going to air on March 25. Trump, though, wants to block it — which has about as much chance of succeeding as Trump actually telling us the whole truth about anything.

The salaciousness of this story gives it its legs, I am going to presume.

As we’ve learned from prior investigations into presidential misbehavior — see President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998 — this story might end up in a most unexpected place.

I don’t know where that will be. I am willing to wait to see where it crashes and burns.

national news

Trump reverses growth quotient

Paul Begala is an acknowledged Democratic partisan. He once worked for President Bill Clinton. He is no fan of Donald Trump.

Now that we’ve established that, I have to concur with something he has said about the president.

Whereas presidents — particularly those who come to the White House with a primarily outside-the-Beltway experience — usually grow in the office, Donald Trump is shrinking the office to fit his own shortcomings.

Begala mentioned how Presidents Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama all learned about the office, how they filled the White House with their presence. Trump has reversed that momentum.

I will add that of the examples Begala cited, all of them had prior government experience. Reagan served two terms as governor of California, Bush served a term and a half as governor of Texas, Clinton served multiple terms as Arkansas governor and Obama served in the Illinois state senate before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006.

Trump’s experience is totally unique. He never sought a public before running for president. He ran a large business. Trump answered to no one. He has demonstrated zero curiosity, zero humility, not a lick of introspection. He has said he’s never sought forgiveness. He won’t admit to making a mistake.

As some observers have noted, Trump’s political skill — which he exhibited while campaigning successfully for the presidency — hasn’t transferred to governing. He doesn’t know how to govern.

Donald Trump isn’t growing into the office he won. He is shrinking it to fit his own diminished profile.

Trump is shaking up the Cabinet. His closest advisers are bailing, or are being pushed out. His Health and Human Services secretary had to quit; his first national security adviser was canned; Trump has just fired the secretary of state; the veterans secretary is about to go; the current national security adviser may be canned; Trump has burned through four communications directors.

This all happened in the first 15 months of his presidency.

And the president would have us believe he is doing the best job in the history of the exalted office of the presidency?

Nope. Paul Begala is right. Donald Trump is shrinking the office.

national news

Is there an impeachable offense in this scandal?

President Bill Clinton was impeached because he answered falsely to a question — posed before a grand jury — about whether he had a sexual relationship with a young White House intern.

Congressional Republicans were waiting for a reason to impeach the Democratic president. The president handed it to them by perjuring himself before a grand jury assembled by special prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Let’s remember that Starr’s probe began with an examination of a real estate matter involving the president and the first lady. We called it “Whitewater.” It was centered in Arkansas.

Somehow, though, it weaved its way toward the relationship the president had with a much-younger woman who was working in the West Wing.

Two decades later, a new special counsel, Robert Mueller, is conducting an investigation into Russian collusion, obstruction of justice and assorted other dealings involving — allegedly — Donald J. Trump.

I now am wondering if this current sex controversy involving Trump and a porn star is somehow going to end up on Mueller’s list of issues to investigate.

Trump has denied having an affair with this woman. Her lawyer has said on the record that the future president and his client did have a sexual relationship.

Given the sometimes-unpredictable nature of these investigations, I am left to wonder what might happen if he is able to subpoena Trump to testify before a grand jury he has assembled.

Is it at all possible that Mueller could ask Trump — who would be compelled to swear to tell “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” — whether he had an affair with this porn queen.

If Trump says “no,” and if the porn queen produces proof that she and Trump took a tumble in 2006, is that grounds for an impeachment?

Holy moly, man! Might history be capable of repeating itself?

Let’s all wait for all of this to play out.

national news

Is lying an impeachable offense? Maybe

The discussion about the investigation into the “Russia thing” has taken a fascinating new turn, thanks to none other than an independent counsel whose probe into Bill Clinton resulted in the former president’s impeachment.

Kenneth Starr said this morning that special counsel Robert Mueller ought to consider the impact of Donald Trump’s apparent lie about firing Mueller.

Speaking on ABC News’s “This Week” talk show, Starr noted that Trump’s repeated statements that he has never considered firing Mueller are exactly counter to what the New York Times and other media are reporting: that Trump actually decided to fire Mueller but backed off when the White House counsel threatened to quit.

How does Starr’s credibility on this matter stack up? In 1998, he said that President Clinton’s public denials about an affair with Monica Lewinsky formed one of the bases for his eventual impeachment.

Do you get it? If Trump has lied to the public about whether he wanted to fire Mueller and the news accounts prove to be accurate, are there, um, grounds for impeachment?

Starr said the president has broad authority to fire anyone. “He can ask for Mueller to be fired for any reason,” Starr said on “This Week.” “The president’s power is extremely broad, as long as he’s not engaged in discrimination or accepting bribes.”

But would his decision to fire Mueller — if it’s true — be because of an intent to block an investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians who hacked into our national electoral system? If so, does that constitute an obstruction of justice?

Let me think. Oh yeah! President Clinton was impeached, too, for obstruction of justice.

And the drama continues to mount.

national news

This former GOP rep has, um, ‘evolved’

1 Comment

Joe Scarborough has gone through an interesting evolution since when he was a young member of Congress from Florida.

He was a conservative Republican who once voted to impeach President Clinton. Then he left public office in 2001 and has pursued a career as a cable news host and commentator.

Now he is one of Donald J. Trump’s most reviled critics. He has left the Republican Party; he’s engaged to be married to his MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host, Mika Brzezinski.

He is now speaking more, um, candidly about the president and, to my mind, is speaking more truthfully about many of the nonsensical things that fly out of the president’s mouth.

He said this week that had Democratic presidents, such as Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, “slandered” the FBI the way Trump has done, conservatives would mount a virtual all-out rebellion against either of them. They would give Obama or Clinton “holy hell” for saying the things Trump has said.

He now accuses the GOP of being “accomplices with their silence” about the president’s harsh criticism of the FBI.

Indeed, there once was a time when Americans hardly ever heard Republicans say things out loud that one could construe as critical of law enforcement. Indeed, the GOP was often considered to be the “law and order” party.

Those days are gone. The roles seem reversed, with Democrats now standing solidly behind the FBI as it seeks to do its job.

So, too, is Joe Scarborough, the one-time Republican who’s had enough of his former political party and its leader, the president of the United States.

Welcome to the club, Joe.

national news

Deficit hawks have turned chicken

What has happened to the deficit hawks who used to dominate the Republican Party?

They have become chicken hawks, or just plain chicken.

Congressional Republicans used to rant, rail and express rage over budget deficits. Ronald Reagan derived a lot political advantage in 1980 by ridiculing the $40 billion budget deficit run up annually during the Carter administration.

Fast-forward to the present day.

Republicans are going to enact a tax cut that will blow up the deficit. It will add $1 trillion — or so — to the deficit over the next decade. That’s $100 billion annually.

But here’s the ironic aspect of this deficit business.

A Democratic president, Bill Clinton, managed to craft a budget that produced a surplus by the end of his presidency. He had help from Republicans in Congress, but the point is that the president and the GOP congressional leadership managed to cooperate and work together for a common good.

Another Democrat, Barack Obama, also managed to take huge bites out of a trillion-dollar-plus annual budget deficit. By the time President Obama left office, the budget deficit had been slashed by about two-thirds annually.

There were tax increases along with targeted budget cuts.

Did the GOP members of Congress give the president any credit? Nope. Didn’t happen. They instead changed the subject by targeting the Affordable Care Act, concocting reports of “dismal failure.”

But here we are today. A new president has taken over. He has sought desperately to achieve some kind of legislative “victory.” Republicans in both congressional chambers are poised to give it to him.

At what cost? Oh, yes. The deficit is set to grow once again. The one-time Party of Fiscal Responsibility has changed it stripes.

national news

Oh, yeah, there’s also the Clinton matter

I feel the need to launch a bit of a preemptive strike at those who are inclined to take issue with an earlier item I posted on High Plains Blogger.

It wonders whether Donald John Trump should consider resigning the presidency in the wake of resignations of three key members of Congress: Democratic Sen. Al Franken, Democratic Rep. John Conyers and Republican Rep. Trent Franks — all of whom quit over allegations of sexual harassment and sexual abuse.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/12/as-long-as-were-insisting-on-resignation/

Critics of this blog might be inclined to remind me that President Bill Clinton should have quit, too, when allegations surfaced about women with whom he had sexual relations. One woman accused him of rape; another accused him of sexual harassment; yet another was revealed to have engaged in some dalliance with the president while she was working as a White House intern.

I’ll answer any such response this way: President Clinton went through a serious round of “due process.”

The House of Representatives impeached him for lying to a grand jury about his relationship with the White House intern. Republicans who ran the House at the time were looking for a reason to impeach Clinton; the president gave them one by lying under oath.

Then came the trial in the Senate, presided over by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Senators heard the evidence, heard the rebuttal to the evidence and then acquitted the president on all the charges brought by the House.

Due process, man. That is what transpired in 1998.  We haven’t been through anything of the sort as it regards the current president.

So, please spare me the “Clinton should have quit, too” mantra. He went through hell by being impeached. He paid a price. Whether it was a sufficient price for what he did depends on whether you agree or disagree with the Senate verdict.

I happen to agree with it.

legal news, national news, political news

Sessions vs. Dowd over ‘obstruction of justice’?

Donald Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, says the president “cannot obstruct justice” because the law exempts him from doing so.

Dowd said: The “president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer … and has every right to express his view of any case.”

Are you clear on that? Me, neither.

Oh, but now we have this tidbit regarding the attorney general of the United States, Jeff Sessions. Nearly two decades ago, when President Bill Clinton was being tried in the U.S. Senate after the House impeached him, Sessions — then a Republican senator from Alabama — said this while making the case to remove the president from office:

“The facts are disturbing and compelling on the president’s intent to obstruct justice.”

There’s more.

“The chief law officer of the land, whose oath of office calls on him to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, crossed the line and failed to defend the law, and, in fact, attacked the law and the rights of a fellow citizen.”

Dadgum, man! Who’s right? The president’s personal lawyer or the attorney general?

Dowd is reaching way beyond his — and the president’s — grasp, in my view, in contending that Trump is immune from the obstruction of justice complaint, were it to come from the special counsel probing the Russian interference in our 2016 presidential election.

I disagree with what Sessions said in 1999 about President Clinton, but his statements on the record during that trial put him squarely at odds with what Trump’s personal lawyer is trying to peddle today. If an earlier president can be charged with obstruction of justice, then surely so can the current president face such a charge if one comes forward from the special counsel’s office.

This all begs the question from yours truly: What kind of legal mumbo jumbo is Trump’s lawyer trying to peddle?

legal news

Is this a nation of laws … or what?

If I understand Donald John Trump’s lawyer’s rationale correctly about whether the president can “obstruct justice,” I believe I have heard him suggest something quite dangerous and insidious.

John Dowd says the president’s role as chief of the executive branch of the federal government means he “cannot obstruct justice.” The president enjoys protection in Article II of the U.S. Constitution that others don’t get, according to Dowd.

He came to Trump’s defense after the guilty plea came from former national security adviser Michael Flynn over whether Flynn lied to the FBI about meetings with Russian operatives.

What I believe Dowd has said is that Donald Trump, as president, is above the law. He can do or say whatever the hell he wants without facing any criminal penalty, according to Dowd.

Let’s review quickly: President Nixon faced obstruction charges in 1974 when the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment against; President Clinton was impeached in 1998 on a number of allegations, including obstruction of justice.

I believe Trump’s lawyer is, um, wrong!

I also believe John Dowd might be talking himself into some serious trouble, right along with his highly visible legal client.